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1 – 10 of over 96000Irina Farquhar and Alan Sorkin
This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative…
Abstract
This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.
Pietro Evangelista, Riccardo Mogre, Alessandro Perego, Antonino Raspagliesi and Edward Sweeney
In today's competitive scenario, effective supply chain management is increasingly dependent on third‐party logistics (3PL) companies' capabilities and performance. The…
Abstract
Purpose
In today's competitive scenario, effective supply chain management is increasingly dependent on third‐party logistics (3PL) companies' capabilities and performance. The dissemination of information technology (IT) has contributed to change the supply chain role of 3PL companies and IT is considered an important element influencing the performance of modern logistics companies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between IT and 3PLs' performance, assuming that logistics capabilities play a mediating role in this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical evidence based on a questionnaire survey conducted on a sample of logistics service companies operating in the Italian market was used to test a conceptual resource‐based view (RBV) framework linking IT adoption, logistics capabilities and firm performance. Factor analysis and ordinary least square (OLS) regression analysis have been used to test hypotheses. The focus of the paper is multidisciplinary in nature; management of information systems, strategy, logistics and supply chain management approaches have been combined in the analysis.
Findings
The results indicate strong relationships among data gathering technologies, transactional capabilities and firm performance, in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, a positive correlation between enterprise information technologies and 3PL financial performance has been found.
Originality/value
The paper successfully uses the concept of logistics capabilities as mediating factor between IT adoption and firm performance. Objective measures have been proposed for IT adoption and logistics capabilities. Direct and indirect relationships among variables have been successfully tested.
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Casey G. Cegielski, L. Allison Jones‐Farmer, Yun Wu and Benjamin T. Hazen
The purpose of this paper is to employ organizational information processing theory to assess how a firm's information processing requirements and capabilities combine to affect…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to employ organizational information processing theory to assess how a firm's information processing requirements and capabilities combine to affect the intention to adopt cloud computing as an enabler of electronic supply chain management systems. Specifically, the paper examines the extent to which task uncertainty, environmental uncertainty, and inter‐organizational uncertainty affect intention to adopt cloud computing technology and how information processing capability may moderate these relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a multiple method approach, thus examining the hypothesized model with both quantitative and qualitative methods. To begin, the paper incorporates a Delphi study as a way in which to choose a practically relevant characterization of the moderating variable, information processing capability. The authors then use a survey method and hierarchical linear regression to quantitatively test their hypotheses. Finally, the authors employ interviews to gather additional qualitative data, which they examine via use of content analysis in order to provide additional insight into the tenability of the proposed model.
Findings
The quantitative analysis suggests that significant two‐way interactions exist between each independent variable and the moderating variable; each of these interactions is significantly related to intention to adopt cloud computing. The qualitative results support the assertion that information processing requirements and information processing capability affect intention to adopt cloud computing. These findings support the relationships addressed in the hypothesized model and suggest that the decision to adopt cloud computing is based upon complex circumstances.
Research limitations/implications
This research is limited by the use of single key informants for both the quantitative and qualitative portions of the study. Nonetheless, this study enhances understanding of electronic supply chain management systems, and specifically cloud computing, through the application of organizational information processing theory. The authors’ mixed‐methods approach allowed them to draw more substantive conclusions; the findings provide a theoretical and empirical foundation for future research in this area, and also suggest the use of additional theoretical perspectives.
Practical implications
This study provides insight that can help supply chain managers to better understand how requirements, when coupled with capabilities, may influence the decision to adopt cloud computing as an enabler of supply chain management systems.
Originality/value
As an emerging technology, cloud computing is changing the form and function of information technology infrastructures. This study enhances the understanding of how this technology may diffuse within the supply chain.
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Piotr Trąpczyński and Arkadiusz Kawa
The objective of the paper is to examine the effects of firm capabilities on the use of Internet technologies, as well as the effect of the use of Internet technologies on export…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of the paper is to examine the effects of firm capabilities on the use of Internet technologies, as well as the effect of the use of Internet technologies on export performance, by drawing from the resource-based view (RBV) and the information systems literature.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors test their propositions by using structural equation modelling (SEM) for 165 Polish exporters from the industrial manufacturing sector.
Findings
The authors’ findings indicate that the use of Internet technologies is positively related to the possessed capabilities of the firms. The use of Internet technologies is in turn positively related to export performance. The authors also find partial evidence for the fact notion that these relationships are moderated by the technology intensity of the sector.
Research limitations/implications
Firms which develop capabilities utilizing Internet technologies are able to enhance both communication and distribution efficiencies which in turn improve the effectiveness of their international operations.
Practical implications
Managers, particularly in sectors with a higher technological intensity, can find these findings useful as the study indicates where they should allocate their efforts to manage various Internet technologies activities for better export performance.
Originality/value
Existing literature has focused predominantly on the application of Internet technologies in the area of e-commerce. The authors go a step further in enhancing the understanding of digitalization in the business models of exporting firms by accounting for a broad variety of Internet-based technologies used by exporters.
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Serge-Lopez Wamba-Taguimdje, Samuel Fosso Wamba, Jean Robert Kala Kamdjoug and Chris Emmanuel Tchatchouang Wanko
The main purpose of our study is to analyze the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on firm performance, notably by building on the business value of AI-based transformation…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of our study is to analyze the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on firm performance, notably by building on the business value of AI-based transformation projects. This study was conducted using a four-step sequential approach: (1) analysis of AI and AI concepts/technologies; (2) in-depth exploration of case studies from a great number of industrial sectors; (3) data collection from the databases (websites) of AI-based solution providers; and (4) a review of AI literature to identify their impact on the performance of organizations while highlighting the business value of AI-enabled projects transformation within organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
This study has called on the theory of IT capabilities to seize the influence of AI business value on firm performance (at the organizational and process levels). The research process (responding to the research question, making discussions, interpretations and comparisons, and formulating recommendations) was based on a review of 500 case studies from IBM, AWS, Cloudera, Nvidia, Conversica, Universal Robots websites, etc. Studying the influence of AI on the performance of organizations, and more specifically, of the business value of such organizations’ AI-enabled transformation projects, required us to make an archival data analysis following the three steps, namely the conceptual phase, the refinement and development phase, and the assessment phase.
Findings
AI covers a wide range of technologies, including machine translation, chatbots and self-learning algorithms, all of which can allow individuals to better understand their environment and act accordingly. Organizations have been adopting AI technological innovations with a view to adapting to or disrupting their ecosystem while developing and optimizing their strategic and competitive advantages. AI fully expresses its potential through its ability to optimize existing processes and improve automation, information and transformation effects, but also to detect, predict and interact with humans. Thus, the results of our study have highlighted such AI benefits in organizations, and more specifically, its ability to improve on performance at both the organizational (financial, marketing and administrative) and process levels. By building on these AI attributes, organizations can, therefore, enhance the business value of their transformed projects. The same results also showed that organizations achieve performance through AI capabilities only when they use their features/technologies to reconfigure their processes.
Research limitations/implications
AI obviously influences the way businesses are done today. Therefore, practitioners and researchers need to consider AI as a valuable support or even a pilot for a new business model. For the purpose of our study, we adopted a research framework geared toward a more inclusive and comprehensive approach so as to better account for the intangible benefits of AI within organizations. In terms of interest, this study nurtures a scientific interest, which aims at proposing a model for analyzing the influence of AI on the performance of organizations, and at the same time, filling the associated gap in the literature. As for the managerial interest, our study aims to provide managers with elements to be reconfigured or added in order to take advantage of the full benefits of AI, and therefore improve organizations’ performance, the profitability of their investments in AI transformation projects, and some competitive advantage. This study also allows managers to consider AI not as a single technology but as a set/combination of several different configurations of IT in the various company’s business areas because multiple key elements must be brought together to ensure the success of AI: data, talent mix, domain knowledge, key decisions, external partnerships and scalable infrastructure.
Originality/value
This article analyses case studies on the reuse of secondary data from AI deployment reports in organizations. The transformation of projects based on the use of AI focuses mainly on business process innovations and indirectly on those occurring at the organizational level. Thus, 500 case studies are being examined to provide significant and tangible evidence about the business value of AI-based projects and the impact of AI on firm performance. More specifically, this article, through these case studies, exposes the influence of AI at both the organizational and process performance levels, while considering it not as a single technology but as a set/combination of the several different configurations of IT in various industries.
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Siddharth Gaurav Majhi, Arindam Mukherjee and Ambuj Anand
Novel and emerging technologies such as cognitive analytics attract a lot of hype among academic researchers and practitioners. However, returns on investments in these…
Abstract
Purpose
Novel and emerging technologies such as cognitive analytics attract a lot of hype among academic researchers and practitioners. However, returns on investments in these technologies are often poor. So, identifying mechanisms through which cognitive analytics can add value to firms is a critical research gap. The purpose of this paper is to theorize how cognitive analytics technologies can enable the dynamic capabilities of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring for an organization.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper draws on the extant academic literature on cognitive analytics and related technologies, the business value of analytics and artificial intelligence and the dynamic capabilities perspective, to establish the role of cognitive analytics technologies in enabling the sensing, seizing and reconfiguring capabilities of an organization.
Findings
Through arguments grounded in existing conceptual and empirical academic literature, this paper develops propositions and a theoretical framework linking cognitive analytics technologies with organizations’ dynamic capabilities (sensing, seizing and reconfiguring).
Research limitations/implications
This paper has critical implications for both academic research and managerial practice. First, the authors develop a framework using the dynamic capabilities theoretical perspective to establish a novel pathway for the business value of cognitive analytics technology. Second, cognitive analytics is proposed as a novel antecedent of the dynamic organizational capabilities of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to theorize how cognitive analytics technologies can enable dynamic organizational capabilities, and thus add business value to an organization.
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The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive…
Abstract
The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.
This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.
The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.
This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.
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While the dynamic capabilities perspective is the most cited strategic theory in the information systems field of research, little effort has been made to review and integrate the…
Abstract
Purpose
While the dynamic capabilities perspective is the most cited strategic theory in the information systems field of research, little effort has been made to review and integrate the associate literature of this perspective in the field. Accordingly, this paper aims to systematically analyze the information systems literature on dynamic capabilities and provide a holistic understanding of the topical composition and trend of dynamic capabilities studies in information systems research.
Design/methodology/approach
Using latent Dirichlet allocation as the text analysis algorithm, the author conducted a topic modeling of the dynamic capabilities corpus in the information systems field of research to quantitatively review, summarize and classify the prior literature. The review covered 191 articles published on dynamic capabilities between 1998 and 2018 in pioneering information systems journals and conference proceedings.
Findings
In accordance with the topic modeling results, the topical composition of the dynamic capabilities corpus in information systems research dominantly includes seven themes titled T1. Information systems value, T2. Information systems change, T3. Digitalization, T4. Information systems agility, T5. Big data, T6. Information systems innovation and T7. Information systems alignment. Also, the overall and topical trend of dynamic capabilities studies in the information systems field of research were revealed. The trends indicated that the investigated domain and its prominent sub-domains have generally had positive productivity over the past years.
Originality/value
The current study contributes to the domain by developing knowledge and improving literature on dynamic capabilities in information systems research, discovering the main topics of interest for information systems researchers to deploying the dynamic capabilities perspective in their studies, and prioritizing the future information systems research on dynamic capabilities based on the identified trends of topics.
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Digital transformation is a foundational change in how firms operate and deliver value to customers by using digital technologies to create new business opportunities. The purpose…
Abstract
Purpose
Digital transformation is a foundational change in how firms operate and deliver value to customers by using digital technologies to create new business opportunities. The purpose of this study is to offer a conceptual framework by reorganizing the elements of digital transformation, including resources, technology, capabilities and performance, into a workable process and investigating how firms integrate these resources, build new capabilities and transform them into enhanced performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This framework builds three blocks: resource integration, organizational capabilities and outcomes, exploring the impact of resource integration on outcomes through organizational capabilities. For resource integration, this study adopts a resource-based view (RBV) and service-dominant logic (SDL) to integrate organizational resources, including information technology (IT)-based resources, which play a role in moderating the effect of resource integration. Moreover, the author argues that firms’ capabilities have two levels: higher-order capabilities and lower-order capabilities, which will convert these resources through the capabilities into organizational performance.
Findings
This framework is built to understand the process of digital transformation and its antecedents for firms’ performance in business environments. Drawing on RBV, it provides a more holistic perspective that has been linked to resource integration, organizational capabilities and outcomes at the firm level. In this way, the theoretical basis for diminishing implicitness associated with the current perspective of digital transformation can be strengthened.
Originality/value
This paper offers a coherent discussion of digital transformation and explains the process of digital transformation, thus advancing prior work. The major contribution is connecting the process of digital transformation through which firms integrate resources, i.e. digital technologies and valuable, rare, inimitable and nonsubstitutable (VRIN) and nonVRIN resources as well, to build organizational dynamic capabilities based on RBV and SDL.
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Paolo Neirotti, Elisabetta Raguseo and Emilio Paolucci
The adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has some peculiarities that may depend on the combined effect of size and the…
Abstract
Purpose
The adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has some peculiarities that may depend on the combined effect of size and the competitive environment. The purpose of this paper is to use a contingency approach to explore how SMEs develop organizational capabilities through ICT investments in response to environmental conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey on 284 SMEs in Italy was conducted and data were analyzed with regression models for testing seven hypotheses on the environmental influence on the development of ICT-based capabilities and the role played by firm size.
Findings
The results show that the environment influences the development of such capabilities in a different way, depending on size. Within munificent environments, ICT-based capabilities are more diffused among larger SMEs, whereas under environmental complexity, this pattern is inverted, with larger SMEs exhibiting a more limited deployment of ICT in support of both their internally and externally oriented processes. Under environmental dynamism medium-sized firms tend to develop more internally oriented ICT capabilities, but fail in reporting superior capabilities for managing external relationships.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to understand the relationship between the environment and ICT investments in SMEs. Since the combined effect of size and the competitive environment may influence considerably the ICT investments in SMEs, this study investigates the organizational responses with respect to how SMEs use ICT to address their external environment. This focus provides a contribution to understand the challenges that SMEs are facing in the current technological and market environment, where changes in the ICT paradigm raise the level of complexity and dynamism and bring changes in competition levels that leave few resources for growth to SMEs.
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